Showing posts with label Sam Riley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Riley. Show all posts

Friday, October 18, 2019




By Tracy Brown Digital Editor
Oct. 18, 2019 12:27 PM

...But the big revelation in “Mistress of Evil” is that Maleficent is not the only one of her kind. The film introduces the dark fey, who have all been living in exile from the human world, and digs further into Maleficent’s origins.
Among the new dark fey introduced are Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Borra (Ed Skrein), two leader figures of their community. Visually, the dark fey are a stark contrast to the various CGI fairies that populate the Moors. And they also look distinct from one another.
“As a civilization, they are very, very diverse,” said costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, who explained that the dark fey’s backstory informed how their different looks were developed.

Because one of the underlying themes of the “Maleficent” franchise is “man versus nature,” it was important for Rønning that the production’s team look to nature in crafting the dark fey and their civilization. And they were struck by a surprising source of inspiration while working at Jolie’s house.
“We were working on the script at her house together with the screenwriters,” said Rønning. “We were trying to crack the code to the dark fey because we wanted to have different factions.
“And then, one of [Jolie’s] younger daughters came in the kitchen one day. She had done a school project about biomes that you find in nature,” explained the filmmaker. “She had made this board with pictures of the different biomes, and we all just looked at each other like, ‘Brilliant, we have the different factions of nature here.’ That was a huge breakthrough for us.”
From there, the four different kinds of dark fey that are shown in the movie were born: The tundra fey, the forest fey, the jungle fey and the desert fey. These four different factions are as visually distinct as the environments they are based on.
The desert fey have wings with colors that evoke their environment, and wear things that appear bleached and rough and cracked. The tundra fey are all ice, with a palette of white and blues and grays. Green and wood are what inspired the looks of the forest fey, while the jungle fey aesthetic was all about endless colors.
“What I really hoped to achieve in terms of the entirety of the dark fey and their costuming was that you not really notice the costuming that much,” said Mirojnick. “Because they’re a species that all have to look organic, and not ‘costume designed.’”

Additionally, they had to consider the dark fey’s wings and their ability to fly with every design.
“You would look at something and say, ‘Do you believe that will go up in the air? Will that fly?’” said Mirojnick.
Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos explained that they had actually developed a full backstory for the dark fey to help explain their different looks as well as why they are all living in exile on an island. This includes the idea that the dark fey all originated in one place — their own version of the Cradle of Humankind.
“We had such a backstory for this and it’s not all necessarily revealed in the movie,” said Tatopoulos. “Their original world was that island. The island exploded, like a giant volcano, so they left many, many thousands of years ago and moved around the world, to different parts of the world, different climates. … But they’d been tracked and trapped by people through the centuries and they came back to their original island.”
This history helped guide the design of the island that Maleficent briefly explores during the film, and how the various factions of the dark fey re-created their different home environments.
Both Tatopoulos and Rønning explained that these details were very important to Jolie. As creatures that have been forced out of their homelands, the dark fey are essentially a band of refugees. Their backstory requires care and adds another dimension to the movie’s overall story.
Although the movie alludes to some of these elements, most of the dark fey’s backstory is not explicitly addressed during “Mistress of Evil” since the focus is on Maleficent actually meeting her kind for the first time.
“Sometimes you come up on backstories that are just here for us, the people working on the movie, to understand what we’re doing, and you don’t necessarily need or have the opportunity to reveal all of it,” said Tatopoulos. “But it’s fun. It’s one of the funnest things in the design world.”



Collider: This character seems like it’s so much fun to play. Did you have some idea that you would get to revisit him, or was it a surprise to you?
SAM RILEY: It was kind of a surprise ‘cause so much time had passed since the last film. My dad was convinced that they would do a sequel, at some point. We were looking online at box office figures and everything, and he definitely thought that, at some point, it was gonna happen. I was really thrilled, to be honest. I’ve never done a sequel before. I hadn’t been killed off, in the first one, so it was possible. I enjoyed the first one, but I was just beginning to really enjoy, when it was all over, with my anxiety and my fear of the whole thing. So, this time, I was happy to be able to go back and just enjoy it. 
At what point did you realize that there actually was going to be a sequel? How far ahead did they call and tell you?
RILEY: It wasn’t a whole lot before. There wasn’t a massive amount of notice, which was quite surprising. My dad was like, “I can feel it, it’s gonna be this summer. This is happening. Angie will probably wanna do a movie.” I was like, “Dad, you have no idea.” He works in the textile industry, by the way. So, I rang my agent and was like, “My dad’s convinced that they’re gonna do the sequel. Have you heard anything?” And they were like, “Well, funnily enough, Disney did ask about your availability.” So, there wasn’t a lot of notice, but I was available.
Since he does get to come into his own a little bit, were you surprised at the direction that Diaval takes in this?
RILEY: Yeah. Angelina is more influential than I am, but we both enjoyed what we were starting to work out, in the first one, with the idea that they were bickering with one another, and that he also really does know where her heart lies and can see past her angry sorceress front. So, we talked about what’s been happening, in the last six years, and how we’ve become the mother and father of Aurora, to some extent, but that the two of them are still bickering with one another, like an old married couple. That’s a lot of fun to play with anyone, but it’s great fun to play with her, obviously.
What have you enjoyed about that relationship, and about sharing that with Angelina Jolie?
RILEY: I’m a huge fan of Angelina Jolie, as so many people are. When she comes on set, I still go, “Fuck, it’s Angelina Jolie! Wow!” With the horns, especially. But, she’s really lovely. We get on really well. We got on well, the last time, but we got on even better, this time. And I never really get to play comedy, in my career. I’ve been pigeonholed more as the dark, troubled characters, or psychopaths, so that was nice. I really enjoyed being silly. And she has great ideas. (Director) Joachim [Rønning] let us mess around, a little bit. We knew that it was going to get quite dark and serious, so we wanted to make sure that there were also some playful moments.
Did you ever get disappointed that you didn’t get some of the wild hair and make-up and prosthetics that some of your co-stars had, or were you fine with not having to go through that for hours?
RILEY: I actually had a lot of hair make-up. In the first movie, I had some of the most because I had a whole chest piece. But my nose wasn’t real, there were scars, and a wig. I still had two and a half hours, or so, in make-up. It was worse in the first film, so I was really happy to not be one of the dark fae. When I saw my pick-up time, it would be five in the morning, but then I’d see 1:30am for the dark fae, who had to sit for six hours to get make-up, and then be ready to start work at seven. So, I was happy. I was working with the same people that did it last time, so we we’re friends and would just chat away. What I’ve learned, in the years in this business, in my experience, is that there can be long periods of time without work. I’ve had that, in the last 10 or 12 years, as an actor. So, I don’t see being in make-up for two and a half hours. I’m grateful to be working. There are worse things. I’ve had real jobs before. 
Do you think Diaval wishes he could just go off on his own, or does he love bickering with Maleficent too much?
RILEY: I think he’s in love with her. That will be Maleficent 3. Otherwise, why would you stay, unless it’s sort of submissive thing. I think he just likes it.
It’s funny that he finds himself in the middle of this big battle that he didn’t ask to be a part of, and he has to save people. 
RILEY: And he’s not really the butch guy. He’s happy that he can be there to help, in the moment that he is there. He loves Aurora and he wants the wedding to go ahead. He sees how happy she is. But he has no idea what’s going on, when all of the other characters turn up.
How cool was it to be on such incredibly elaborate sets?
RILEY: A lot of it was practical. I’ve done really low budget films, and medium size ones. I love the whole process of being on a set, and all of the people coming together, and to witness something on that scale is really exciting to watch. It’s like herding cats, sometimes. Sometimes you’re just like, “How the fuck are we gonna do this? There’s a hundred extras.” There were so many dark fae. At one point, I saw a group of 200 people in one corner and they weren’t in costume. I was like, “Who are they?” They were the make-up artists because every one of the fae needed three make-up artists. I don’t even know how any other film was being shot in England, on that day, because every make-up artist in the country was there. It blows your mind, that stuff.
And with all of that going on, your director had to keep everything straight, in his head.
RILEY: Yeah. Joachim did an incredible job of keeping track of it. On the last days, everybody who was in the movie was there, so you’re dealing with a lot of actors and a lot of questions, not only from the actors, but from every single department. And then, there are all of the things that aren’t there. And there are the things that you have to change. You have to roll with it.
Did you have a moment on set, where things just felt so surreal that you couldn’t believe this is your life?
RILEY: On this one, there were many times like that. We shot the banquet scene over 10 days. You tell a friend what you’re doing, and it’s pretty nuts. They’ll say, “What are you doing today?,” and you say, “Well, we’re shooting a scene with Michelle Pfeiffer and Angelina Jolie.” It was very fun. Every day was pretty extraordinary.













#Maleficent 2 is playing in theaters 🎭 First of all, to Angie, Thank you for having me on your journey. You always inspire me and I’ve been learning tons from you. Such an honor to fly with you and see how you put your passion toward your creation with a strong message to deliver. Big big respect as always.🙏🏻🙏🏻😌💯And of course awesome @joachimronning and all the professional and sweet cast and film crew, it was surreal to be on set and work with you guys as a team with an important mission. (Big up to Tundra!!!!🙌🏻x1000) And... Team UDO!!!!! Big appreciation to your hard work every single day, putting makeup on my face while I’m dozing off on the chair (That was an absolutely brilliant invention to put gaff tape on my head with the chair so that my head doesn’t move while I was sleeping 😴) Thanks to you guys, it was always so much fun filled with laughter and smiles. Thank you so much, sending big love to you all. Everyone, please get your ticket and check it out at the theatre. And don’t forget to find yours truly as a white dark fey ☝🏻☝🏻🧝🏻‍♂️💙 マレフィセント２、公開されました！ディズニーならではの素晴らしい映像美とストーリー🎬そして作品に込められたメッセージ。ちょっぴりですが参加できて光栄でした！現場でも沢山のことを学ばせていただきました🙌🏻アンジー姉さんはじめ最高のキャスト＆クルーに感謝です🙏🏻皆さん、是非、劇場で白い妖精を探してみてね 🧝🏻‍♂️ #マレフィセント
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Saturday, June 7, 2014






By Miranda Collinge
The Control and On The Road actor takes our new questionnaire





He's played doomed pop stars, Beat Generation heroes and Brighton gangsters.
Now, Leeds-born Sam Riley is starring in the biggest film of his career - the Angelina Jolie / Disney mega-event Maleficent.
Here he talks to Esquire about growing a good moustache, singing at pedestrians and beating the Germans at penalties at his wedding.
***
The last time I...
...Put on an accent
It was probably for Maleficent [Disney’s Sleeping Beauty reboot; Riley plays Diaval, the right-hand raven of Angelina Jolie’s evil queen]. I was an Irish raven. Southern Irish… well, Dubliny. I’m just covering all bases so I don’t offend anyone from Cork. I thought he should have come from Leeds.

 .....








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Sunday, June 1, 2014







British actor Sam Riley recruited his Maleficent co-star Angelina Jolie to help make his grandfather's 90th birthday extra special by having the beauty sign a card for him.

The On the Road star's shooting schedule for the film was rearranged so he was able to return home with the special note from the actress.

Riley says, "She signed him a birthday card, which is pride of place in the kitchen. He shows it to everybody who comes around."

His grandfather wasn't the only member of the Riley family Jolie impressed - she also made time to speak to her co-star's parents when they came to visit the set.

He continues, "When my mom and dad came to visit she was so lovely with them that they floated back home. They're still telling everyone."











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Monday, May 26, 2014





geek tyrant

Sam Riley Talks to GeekTyrant about MALEFICENT, Jolie, and Michael Jackson


by Mily Dunbar

Maleficent finally hits theater screens this week, and I recently sat down with Sam Riley, who plays Diaval, Maleficent’s "loyal bird-man companion." Riley is a vital presence in the film and was, frankly, a delight to talk to. He racked up a slew of awards and nominations for his portrayal of Ian Curtis in Control and has received critical praise for his performances in indie fare such as Brighton Rock and On the Road. Maleficent is his big-budget Hollywood debut, and it’s a pretty sweet set up for him — he shares all of his scenes with Angelina Jolie.

Diaval delivers most of the expository dialogue, which maybe isn’t the most fun you can have as an actor, but Riley explained why he wanted the role and how he and Jolie kept things interesting.
"Well, I know what you mean… He’d sort of come on and explain what’s just happened, just in case anyone hadn’t quite followed it. And they did make me then do it a couple times afterwards just in case anyone really hadn’t followed it, but well, then that’s the challenge, yeah? Because you have to try and deliver it in a way… Well, I think I have my tongue in my cheek a little bit while doing some of them, particularly the complicated sentences… To be able to do all my scenes with [Jolie] was a very attractive proposition, you know, to work with her, obviously. So, I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind so much. And she sort of wanted to develop this idea that if they’ve been spending every day together for 16 years then they probably get on each other’s nerves a little bit and bicker a bit like an old married couple or something, so they sort of developed that more, which made it all the more bearable."
Riley took umbrage at the idea that he would suggest the addition of a Maleficent/Diaval kissing scene, but apparently I wasn’t the only one to ask.
"Yes. What about Maleficent? Doesn’t she find true love? With her loyal, bird-man companion? Um, no, I would never, I would never dare say something like that. You’re not the first person that’s asked me that, though, funnily enough. Maybe there’ll be a sequel…"
He had nothing but praise for his co-star, but recommends caution before pranking her.
"Working with her was great! I mean, everybody says that about everybody, but I was pretty nervous at the beginning. I mean, just to meet somebody that famous doesn’t happen every day… But there’s reasons why she’s got to where she is,[which] is that she’s megaprofessional, but also very easy and uncomplicated to work with, and everybody really loves her being around on set — you know, the crew, because she’s charming with everybody and nobody’s too small in the group or something, and so it made it very easy. And she’s a good laugh. I mean, I didn’t get involved in any of the pranks that were going on because, I mean, you don’t want to start fucking with somebody with the funds and materials that she has at her disposal for a pranking war, but she’s a lot of fun. I enjoyed it."
The necessary set up for this quote is that he shot the movie two years ago and he hasn’t seen it yet, so he isn’t always sure what to say about it. Also, his friends are keeping him humble.
"Um, so it’s quite strange, doing these, like yesterday doing the TV junkets and things, and I have absolutely — I mean, I’m not even in the fucking trailer, so… (laughs) I have no idea. Actually there is a split-second, but my friends at home are all like, ‘that could be anybody…’ They’re just taking the piss, but they sent like pictures of superimposed of Michael Jackson’s head on top my body and things, like, hilarious…"
I think his favorite thing in the movie was the horse (mine too!), and you’ll know why when you see it.
"It was BEAUTIFUL. And real! And they built this incredible mask for it, it was really, that was insane. I mean, they’re really beautiful things."
Maleficent opens this Friday, May 30, in theaters nationwide.

















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Thursday, May 22, 2014




















Sam Riley talks Maleficent

Sam Riley talks Maleficent

Sam Riley on stereotypes, musical ambitions and working with Angelina.
Your new film Maleficent is a bit of a departure for you, in that it’s a Disney remake of Sleeping Beauty starring Angelina Jolie. Why the drastic change?
I was curious about what it was like to work on a bigger scale, not only [in terms of] budget but also green screens and sets. And I really wanted to work with Angelina. Why not? My grandfather, who is 93, is desperate to see me do something amusing in a movie before it’s too late. I want to do things that are different. People will get bored of me chain smoking cigarettes and crying, won’t they?
You play Jolie’s sidekick Diaval – a shape-shifter who flits between human and raven. We read she picked you out specifically for the part. How did that happen?
I think it was Robert [Stromberg], the director, who wanted me, but she also had a say in it. One of the things she did notice was that I had a wedding ring on. She liked the fact that I was married, apparently. I think it made Brad feel more secure [laughs]. You know, [Brad might say,] “Who’s this Northern chap?”
Jolie’s daughter Vivienne plays the young princess in the film. Was the whole Jolie-Pitt gang on set?
Yeah, sometimes. Brad’s a cool guy. It’s a cliché but the really famous people – the stars – are often the cool ones. It’s the ones that are frustrated they’re not as big as they think they should be – they’re the pains in the arse on set. Brad was super nice, we had a drink. It’s always surreal; you’re sort of half paying attention to it happening and half already telling your mates.
Angelina sports some pretty impressive cheekbones in the film…
[Laughs] Before or after the makeup? The amazing thing is you don’t really see where the seams are, so it looks perfect. I remember on one of the first days, Peter Capaldi [who plays King Kinloch] and I were chatting and he was starting to have his makeup put on. Then I went off and four hours later this goblin – or a man with a proper goblin’s head, moving and everything with little hairs in his ears – comes over to me and just carries on the conversation. I was like, “Is that you, Peter, under there?” Unbelievable; it’s insane. So really, you barely noticed Angelina’s cheekbones when everyone else was looking so bonkers.
You went on a month-long ‘beatnik bootcamp’ in preparation for On the Road. How did you go about researching this role?
[Laughs] This is f*cking embarrassing. I didn’t really know anything about ravens, for one thing. So I watched a lot of videos on YouTube. Then they arranged for me to see a movement coach from one of the London drama schools, one of the ones that refused me as a lad. For three hours I sat in a room with a raven. They are enormous; I had no idea. Really intimidating and incredible characters. I studied the raven and then with this movement coach we tried to incorporate things. It made me really glad I didn’t actually go to drama school, because by the end of session I was running round this hall flapping my arms.

Maleficent is at cinemas nationwide from 28 May UK





Read the full post at shortlist
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Sam


From Bullet Media

Film & TV / Winter 2012


Sam Riley’s Paradise Found







December 18th, 2012

by
Photography by Willem Jaspert
His band had recently broken up when, lost and dejected, Sam Riley was tapped to play the haunted post-punk icon Ian Curtis in Control. It’s a tough role to beat, but he’s done just that with his portrayal of Jack Kerouac’s drifting alter ego, Sal Paradise, in On the Road. Deenah Vollmer meets the English actor in Berlin and discovers that he’s got nowhere to go but everywhere.
...........

This summer, Riley filmed Maleficent, a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty starring Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning (see page 148), with an estimated $200 million budget. He describes his Disney debut in relation to his previous roles as “more or less the same, only I don’t smoke or die.” As a raven named Diaval who sometimes appears in human form, he plays the sidekick to Jolie’s evil queen. He shakes his head, recalling with disbelief his first day on set. “They said, ‘Angelina is ready,’ and all I could see was the back of her head with these huge horns on it. I thought, Fucking hell! What am I supposed to do?” According to Riley, Jolie was “quite subversive,” even when playing by the rules of such a large production. “She’s doing Disney but she doesn’t want it to be too safe,” he says of Jolie, who allegedly fought for him to get the part after he was ruled out for not being “Disney material.” Before Maleficent hits theaters, he’ll star as a vampire in Neil Jordan’s latest film, Byzantium. “I have the complexion of a vampire,” Riley says drily. He has other undead characteristics, too—a widow’s peak, arched brows, and canines angled like the ends of an upside-down canoe. “I always thought I was overdoing it, but how can you not when you’re changing into a vampire?”


You can read the rest at bulletmedia

on-the-road-movie-image-sam-riley-garrett-hedlund-1




Marc Malkin lifts from the same article without crediting the source.

From E!

What Do Kristen Stewart and Angelina Jolie Have in Common? A Man!

by Marc Malkin

Dimitrios Kambouris/Stephen Lovekin/Dave Hogan/Getty Images

Sam Riley is a lucky man.
Not only does he costar alongside Kristen Stewart in the just-released On the Road, but he also plays the sidekick Diaval to Angelina Jolie's evil queen in the Sleeping Beauty flick Maleficent.

He got a taste of K.Stew's fame when On the Road director Walter Salles put the cast through "beatnik boot camp," where they were given dialect lessons, listened to jazz and watched Jean-Luc Godard and John Cassavetes movies at a Montreal hotel.

Find out what K.Stew has to say about making her fans "angry"

A car pulled up in front of him one day and the driver asked if Riley could walk down the street again so he could get a better photo of him.

The actor thought he was someone from production, but quickly realized it was a paparazzo waiting for Stewart. "At 19, I think I would have wanted to be that famous, but now that I'm older and settled, I wouldn't like it at all," Riley says in the new issue of Bullet magazine. "Actually, I wouldn't mind the money."

As for Jolie, Riley says she was "quite subversive" when they were making the movie. "She's doing Disney but she doesn't want it to be too safe," he said.
As if Angie's ever safe.

Riley isn't the only thing Kristen and Angelina have in common. Check them out in our Stars Who Got Naked for Good Movies photo gallery.
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Friday, December 14, 2012

bits


From THR

'Maleficent': Sam Riley Says Angelina Jolie Took Him Under Her Wing

8:16 AM PST 12/14/2012 by Erin Carlson

"There are worse jobs," the "On the Road" star says of working alongside the actress/Earth mother.



Sam Riley as Jack Kerouac in "On the Road."
Sam Riley plays literary icon Sal Paradise in the big-screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road -- but in his upcoming film, Maleficent, the British actor portrays Angelina Jolie's "lackey."
"I play a raven -- I'm Angelina's lackey, basically," the 32-year-old actor said Thursday at a Peggy Siegal Company-hosted NYC screening of On the Road.
That's not a bad gig?
"No, there are worse jobs," he told The Hollywood Reporter, adding that Jolie's make-up in the Disney Pictures' film is "insane" but "she's not Method. She's very nice. She took me under her wing, so to speak. We had a great time."
PHOTO: Angelina Jolie as 'Maleficent'
Jolie, 37, portrays the iconic Sleeping Beauty villain in the live-action origins story, which began filming over the summer. Directed by Robert Stromberg, the movie -- slated for release in March 2014 -- also stars Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora and several members of the Jolie-Pitt brood: Pax, 9, Zahara, 7, and Vivienne, 4.
Riley, who jokingly described his character Diaval as a "mird" (man-slash-bird), called Jolie "a consummate professional, so I admire that very much."
Riley, meanwhile, will soon be seen in limited release Dec. 21 as Kerouac's alter ego in the Walter Salles-directed On the Road, co-starring Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund and Kirsten Dunst. Riley's other credits include 2007's Control, in which he portrayed Joy Division's Ian Curtis, and the Saoirse Ronan-starring vampire thriller Byzantium.
Twitter: @ErinLCarlson
Email: erin.carlson@thr.com





From Celebuzz




“Maybe they’ll be around for Christmas, so I’ll be able to get to see them.”


 
Working New Year's Eve sounded terrible at first...until finding out Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are going to be here


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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Riley

In interviews with Total Film and The Guardian, Sam Riley said he owes his casting to Angelina and mentioned that he introduced his parents to her during their set visit. 




Angelina Jolie fought for Sam Riley for Maleficent

Exclusive: "I guess I owe her a pint."

Sep 22nd 2012


Maleficent, the Angelina Jolie-starring revisionist Disney fairytale that’s set to pull a Wicked on Sleeping Beauty, is shooting right now.

And joining Jolie in the cast is a considerable amount of Brit talent, including Juno Temple, Imelda Staunton, Peter Capaldi and one Mr Sam Riley.

We caught up with the On The Road actor for the latest issue of Total Film magazine (out now), and as well as chatting about adapting Jack Kerouac’s Beat generation classic, Riley also spilled on being cast alongside Jolie (Angie, to some)…

Tell us about Maleficent...

“I’ve been calling it ‘Male-li-fic-cent’ but I keep getting corrected by my dialect coach because of course I’m not doing my own voice in this picture as well!

“That was another thing I sort of fell into because I wasn’t working for a while and I couldn’t find anything I like before they said ‘Do you want to audition for a Disney film?’

“And I thought that I couldn’t just sit and wait in Berlin for job roles, so I auditioned for it and then I heard that I wasn’t really Disney material which I could fully understand. About two weeks after I heard that she’d seen the tape and I was back in the running so I guess I owe her a pint.

Do you mean Angelina Jolie?

“Oh yeah, my mate Angie.”

You don’t call her that do you?

“I didn’t at first. I heard she doesn’t mind and I kept hearing everyone on set called her Angie and I thought I could never get away with that so I called her Angelina. Or avoided her name altogether. But I did get a quiet moment and she did say she doesn't mind being called Angie. But Maleficent looks great. A role where I don’t die and I don’t smoke. I love it.”

On The Road opens on 12 October 2012, with Maleficent expected to arrive in 2014.




The Guardian

Sam Riley: the beat goes on…



The Observer,

Sam Riley
"Brad Pitt said he was glad he got too old to play Sal because it would have been too much pressure": Sam Riley photographed in a London studio. Fashion editor Helen Seamons; grooming by Claire Ford. Photograph: Jason Hetherington for the Observer Photograph: Jason Hetherington for the Observer
In 1957 Jack Kerouac, suddenly famous as the authentic prophet of the Beat generation, wrote to Marlon Brando to ask him to star in a film adaptation of his novel On the Road. The instantly legendary book, written in three weeks on a single roll of paper, had just been published to contentious acclaim, and Kerouac, never a man scared to dream, had high hopes that the film could be a similar fast-forward phenomenon. He imagined himself starring in it as his questing alter ego Sal Paradise, alongside Brando, who would take the part of Dean Moriarty, the fictional version of his Benzedrine-fuelled soulmate, Neal Cassady.
In his suitably breathless letter to Brando, Kerouac could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect: "I'm praying that you'll buy ON THE ROAD and make a movie of it… " he wrote. "Don't worry about the structure, I know to compress and re-arrange the plot a bit to give a perfectly acceptable movie-type structure… I visualise the beautiful shots with the camera on the front seat of the car showing the road (day and night) unwinding into the windshield, as Sal and Dean yak… You play Dean and I'll play Sal (Warner Bros mentioned I play Sal) and I'll show you how Dean acts in real life… we can go visit him in Frisco, or have him come down to LA. [He's] still a real frantic cat… All I want out of this is to be able to establish myself and my mother a trust fund for life, so I can really go roaming around the world… to write what comes out of my head and free to feed my buddies when they're hungry… "
Brando never replied to Kerouac's letter, though he kept it (it sold early this year at auction for $33,600), and the movie of On the Road was often dreamed of but never made by the time Kerouac had drunk himself to oblivion aged 47 in 1969. A young director called Francis Ford Coppola picked up the rights, and in the subsequent 40 years at least five versions of a script were worked and reworked, and almost every up-and-coming actor with a restless soul and an eye for the horizon was linked with the mythological project – from Dennis Hopper through to Sean Penn. Though the book was the prototype of a hundred road movies and one blueprint for "bromances" from Butch Cassidy to Brokeback Mountain, it seemed ever more resistant to adaptation as the decades rolled on. Jean-Luc Godard had come close to directing it as his first Hollywood film; by the time the Brazilian director Walter Salles approached Coppola with the ambition to do it in 2007, the original travelling-light encounter with the American road was freighted with all sorts of baggage.
In homage to that fact, before he made the film, and while production money ebbed and flowed, Salles, the director of the Motorcycle Diaries of Che Guevara, made a documentary about the journey Kerouac's book itself had undergone on the way to the cinema screen. One of the first things Salles did when he had finally cast his Sal and Dean was to show them this movie at a month-long total immersion "beatnik bootcamp" in Montreal, preparing them for the months of filming ahead. I'm sitting in a hotel in London with Salles's Sal Paradise, listening to him recount some of that history, and the surprise is that he is doing so in a thick Yorkshire accent.
Sam Riley, who relishes the accent in question, could never be accused of ducking a challenge. His first screen role was as the ultimate doomed and cultish rock star, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, who took his own life in 1980 and whose fans had the fervour of disciples. It was Riley's mesmerising performance channelling the singer in Anton Corbijn's film Control that convinced Salles he could take on the even more daunting legend of Kerouac. In between times Riley had also set himself up to fail as Pinkie Brown in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, a remake of the 1947 film which was the benchmark of postwar British cinema.
"On the Road is another one of those," Riley says in his cheerfully blunt way, as if it is his fate to play the unplayable, "a film in which the audience has a very clear idea of who they think your character is, so you know you are asking for it. But that's the challenge. And that's why you know you don't want anyone else to do it. I auditioned for Sal Paradise early in 2009 and it seemed to go well, but I didn't hear anything for 18 months – and part of me was a bit relieved, to be honest – but then my agent called and said: 'You start filming in a few weeks' and I thought: 'Fuck, here we go… ' Walter showing us the documentary he had made didn't help much. He had footage of a lot of Coppola's casting sessions from over the years. The young Russell Crowe and Matthew McConaughey and others. Brad Pitt saying he was glad he eventually got too old to play Sal because it would have been too much pressure. I was thinking: 'Great… '"
At his hippy retreat Salles had Riley and Minnesota-born Garrett Hedlund, who would play Dean, meet everyone he could find who had known the original Beat double act, writers and drug casualties and people who had been around their San Francisco of the 50s. Neal Cassady's son came for a weekend. And all of these survivors looked Riley up and down. "Obviously I was as surprised as anyone else that Walter wanted a Yorkshireman to play Jack Kerouac," he recalls. "I remember the first biographer we met, a very nice gentleman whose whole life revolved around academic study of the Beats. Garrett and I greeted him at the door and he said to Garrett: 'You must be Dean.' Then looked over my shoulder and said: 'Which one is playing Kerouac?' I said: 'I am.' He said: 'You are awful tall to be Kerouac, and you don't have blue eyes.' And I started to say something else and he said: 'My God! Are you British?'"
Not surprisingly, after a month of this, Riley and Heglund, and their co-star Kristen Stewart, who plays Dean's wild-child girlfriend, Marylou, were desperately keen to move on. Which was probably Salles's intention. Over the subsequent six months they properly took to the highway. "Walter wanted us to be as bonded as possible. We had to wrap Kristen's stuff in the first three months so we were flying all over the place to get the right weather," Riley recalls. "We went down to Patagonia for four days for the snow, and then Louisiana, 100% humidity, then Arizona, then Mexico, then Calgary, then we finished in San Francisco… "
I'd watched the film a couple of days before seeing Riley. That sense of ever-shifting location is its abiding character, along with the diminishing highs of drifting and home-wrecking as Sal and Dean search for their personal nirvanas in sex and drugs and writing and change. Riley and Hedlund and Stewart make a mythical threesome (sometimes in every sense), but the yearning for newness that gave the book its tone, that made it the attention-deficit bible for generations of rootless young men everywhere, is predictably tough to replicate on screen. The sadness of always chasing one last good time quickly becomes repetitive, which is part of the point. After a while only the scenery changes, though there are plenty of memorable characters along the way, notably Viggo Mortensen's William Burroughs.
It is a testament to Riley and Heglund that Sal and Dean's complicated love for each other is likably credible throughout. It couldn't have worked had he not got on well with Hedlund, Riley says. "It was a big ask in that way. Six months travelling together. We couldn't have grown up in more different parts of the world or come from more different backgrounds. But Garrett's not a typical young actor; he's very warm. He was already in character when I met him two years before. It was the part he was born to play, really. He's more considerate than Dean, but all the talking in mad obsessive tangents was completely him. I remember the first morning – he came in with this poem. He was like: 'I was up late last night and I've written something and I want to share it with you all.' And he read out this amazing poem. I thought: 'Bastard.' And I could see Walter looking at me thinking: 'What have you got?' I was like: 'The dog ate mine, you know... '"
I'm guessing that the film may have cured any vestigial wanderlust in 32-year-old Riley; it looks like the kind of job that makes you happy to get home.
He laughs. "It's odd. I was cured of that already by being in my band." In his early 20s, having left his public boarding school, Uppingham, and having been rejected by all the London drama schools, Riley fronted a band called 10,000 Things, in which his brother played bass. They threatened success for a while, playing the Reading Festival, supporting Razorlight and Babyshambles on tour, but it came to nothing in the end. It did in retrospect, though, give Riley some insight into Kerouac's vagabond spirit.
What was the furthest they got, I wonder.
"We went all the way to Dundee once, which was a long way in our bus," he says. "We'd bought it from Leeds council and it only had a seat at the front. We had sofas and stuff in the back, mirrored windows. We loved it. In a different town every night. It was great for a while."
At school Riley had told people who asked that he would either be a rock star or an actor, "not being cocky, only because acting and singing were the only things I could do". It was a while coming. The first time he ever saw himself on a screen was the premiere of Control at Cannes five years ago. "I was lucky it was such a beautiful film," he says. "But it was very weird. I mean like hearing your own voice on an answerphone, but magnified a lot. I think I left nail marks in the arms of the seat. You just fear you are going to do something false. You are just thinking: 'Don't fuck up.' And as an actor I still don't really know exactly what I am doing most of the time." You wouldn't guess; his debut won him several awards, including the unofficial accolade of Mark Kermode's actor of the year, but his experience remains limited.
He's still only properly been in four films, which makes it a bit like a high-wire act, he suggests. He is grateful for the advice of his wife, Alexandra Maria Lara, whom he met working on Control – she has been a star in Germany and beyond since she was 16 and was Oscar nominated for her role as Hitler's secretary in Downfall. They live in Berlin, which Riley loves. "You know, you set out wanting to be as famous as you can be, but then the closer it gets, you get a bit apprehensive," he says. He had seen the price of fame up close in brushes with the likes of Pete Doherty, and he could mine some of that experience for the Kerouac film. "I feel quite safe and isolated in Germany," Riley says. "My wife is very well known there. But I am only looked at when I am holding her hand."
It allows him to maintain his inner Yorkshireman even, as he mentions in passing, now he is working with Angelina Jolie on the Disney film Maleficent. "My parents are relieved as much as anything that I'm getting some work," he says with a smile. "They get to visit me on set. I was driving them around Pinewood on a golf buggy. They met Angie. They loved all that. My father is a typical Yorkshireman. When I was about 12 the whole family went to Disneyland – it was our one real big holiday abroad. So he likes the fact Disney is now paying me. 'Sam, you realise that was like a free holiday now,' he told me."
As the mother-fixated Kerouac discovered perhaps too late, however hard you try, you can never properly escape where you came from. Riley rather enjoys that fact. "I caught myself looking at the thermometer outside the house the other day," he says. "To see whether it was warmer than yesterday. I thought: 'Christ, it's happening. I'm becoming my dad.' I'll be getting the map out next and seeing exactly where we drove to in On the Road."
On the Road opens on 12 October




SWTS.thescotsman.image.e

Interview: Sam Riley, actor

Sam Riley Sam Riley
By Claire Black
Published on Sunday 30 September 2012 16:11
“I don’t have to look good, do I?” Sam Riley says, sounding pleased.
That is his reaction to the fact that we’re talking on the phone rather than meeting face to face. Fair enough. It makes sense, for him. But I’m feeling a bit disappointed to not be seeing those cheek bones with my very own eyes. That flop of hair, his not quite conventional handsomeness but slightly rough around the edges rockstar charm. Still, as soon as his rasping voice crackles down the phone line I realise that no cheekbones, no matter how razor sharp, could be better than that. Riley’s best feature, as far as I’m concerned, is his gravelly Northern voice. The kind of voice that sounds as though it’s been honed from hours of dedicated commitment to nicotine consumption.
.
Being in a band didn’t lead to rock stardom, but it was perfect preparation for what was to become Riley’s breakout film role, and what has continued to be his calling card. With no formal acting training (Riley was knocked back from LAMDA and from Rada, the latter for being too young and inexperienced) being cast as Ian Curtis, the tortured lead singer of Joy Division, in Anton Corbijn’s film, Control, was a big ask, but Riley was mesmerising.
“I had the feeling that I had nothing to lose then because I had nothing else going on,” he says. “It was just one of these things where you got a great director, nobody knows who the hell you are and everything just falls into place at the right time. People have not seen you struggle your way through The Bill, they’ve only seen you in this ideal, black-and-white film, singing, which is what I’d been doing for five years, with all these dramatic emotions. It’s the job that all actors dream of having just once in their career. It’s hard to follow but it’s been a calling card, it’s helped me get every job since.”

...
Riley likes living in Berlin he says because it means that he’s not anywhere near “the business” unless he’s working in it. But that’s not to say he’s snobbish about the work he does. He might not want to live in LA, but he definitely wants to work in Hollywood.
“I’m doing a Disney film now,” he says, sounding genuinely excited. “I’m Angelina Jolie’s sidekick in Maleficent. It’s cool. I don’t die and I don’t smoke. I’m ploughing new ground. I’m really thrilled to be able to do it just before I get typecast completely as the depressive, artist, chain smoker.” He laughs.
It turns out, though, however unlikely it sounds that Control played a part in getting him that role too.
“Angelina said she watched it,” he says. “When someone like that says they’ve seen it you think man, I remember just being in Nottingham monkeying around with the other boys. And then someone like that tells you she’s seen it and it’s surreal really.
“To do a studio film, something with Disney.” He sounds as though he’s shaking his head in disbelief. “My father is thrilled.” He laughs before doing an impression of his dad. “‘If you think about it, son, it’s like a free holiday isn’t it?’ How typically Yorkshireman is that?”
On the Road (15) is on general release from 12 October

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Sunday, August 19, 2012

Maleficent bits





hey Sharlto.. Nice working with you today...twas a pleasure sire! See you soon ;) Jules 
1:14 PM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for Android 
Back down to earth with a bump..yesterday i played a general & right hand man to the king overseeing his armies ...today invoicing!! :-) 
6:26 AM - 21 Aug 12 via Twitter for Android



Back at pinewood. Here we go! :) 
3:07 AM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry®


Delivery to Pinewood Studios
1:43 PM - 22 Aug 12 via Instagram



I’m at Pinewood Studios. Currently parked outside the 007 stage. Apparently Angelina Jolie’s here somewhere.
5:26 PM - 21 Aug 12 via Tweetbot for iOS  



never seen so many good looking bearded men
5:48 AM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for iPhone



Had a fun morning on ...now to go into hibernation after awaking at the crack on dawn! 
10:17 AM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry®



First day filming a new movie with Angelina Jolie and sharlto Copley today called Maleficent whilst still recovering from v....bad idea. 
9:17 AM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for iPhone



Senior FX TDs needed in Vancouver! Roles starting January 2013. Get in touch if you're interested. ben-o@moving-picture.com
The Vancouver Senior FX roles starting in January will be for Disney's Maleficent!
4:22 AM - 21 Aug 12 via LinkedIn

MPC has been awarded a significant number of shots for Disney's upcoming Maleficent.



Don't think I'll be back in Arkham land any time soon, but thanks for the thoughts, both about Arkham and Maleficent.



Ugh my step-dad has been working with angelina jolie for like 2 weeks. Jealous is seriously not the word. Hottest woman on the planet. 
11:15 AM - 21 Aug 12 via Twitter for iPhone



A photo of our Antique Hexagonal Terracotta Tiles which will be in the upcoming film



Riley wanted to bow to Angelina

Monday 20th August 2012, 12:20AM BST.



Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent co-star Sam Riley has confessed he felt like he ought to bow every time he saw her on set.

The British actor – whose new film On The Road with Kristen Stewart is released in October – has been working with Angelina in Disney’s fairytale spin-off movie about the Sleeping Beauty sorceress.
Sam said of working with Angelina: “She’s approachable but she has an aura of a star, certainly, you want to bow when she comes on set. I do in my character.”
The Control star added: “She’s very nice, I know everyone says that about their colleagues but she’s very cool.”
The 3D film, which has been written by Linda Woolverton and is scheduled for release in 2014, reveals the events that hardened Maleficent’s heart and drove her to curse the baby, Aurora (Elle).
Angelina previously revealed that her children are excited about her transformation.
“I’m having a lot of fun. I’ve already got my horns fitted. My kids are very happy,” she said.

 Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2012, All Rights Reserved.


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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Riley + Maleficent bits

Sam Riley who plays Diaval, the Raven who can assume human form and who is Maleficent's right hand, talks briefly about the film.  Starts at 1:50.


Published on Aug 16, 2012 by


Sam Riley talks about what fans can expect from Angelina Jolie in new Sleeping Beauty film -




up early tomomo for movie
6:35 AM - 20 Aug 12 via Twitter for iPhone



I'm filming this movie called "Maleficent" with Angelina Jolie etc. so I guess I'm chained here haha 
8:13 PM - 17 Aug 12 via Echofon
there are worse places to be stuck than Oxford, haha! And if you want free cinema tickets at the Odeon i can sort you out :P



Roman soldiers at pinewood #soldier#pinewoodstudio
 11:47 AM - 15 Aug 12 via Instagram


Just walked round a corner to find a man with a drawn long bow aimed at another mans head
2:39 PM - 15 Aug 12 via Twitter for iPhone



Top tip of the day: when you can watch Angelina Jolie being filmed, try not to associate her costume with Slender Man; you will shriek. 
9:47 AM - 17 Aug 12 via Mobile Web





4:30am for me! I'm en route to Pinewood, have fun! Explain our nig thing, lmfao might turn it into a song :P 
First of the day goes to I am at this amazing studio today, it's incredible and of course studios of Bond since Dr No!  
1:49 AM - 17 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry®
I'm doing some stand in work on Maleficent (the new Sleeping Beauty film) was on set with Angelina Jolie the other day!  
1:59 AM - 17 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry®



Working on angelina jolie's new movie, the set looks amazing 
 2:52 AM - 13 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry®
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